Yesterday, Youtube announced that it would shut down, demonetize and otherwise punish channels that promoted violent extremism, "supremacy" and other forms of hateful expression; predictably enough, this crackdown has caught some of the world's leading human rights campaigners, who publish Youtube channels full of examples of human rights abuses in order to document them and prompt the public and governments to take action.
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This week's Christchurch Call event in Paris brought together politicians, tech execs and civil society to discuss means of "countering violent extremism" online; it was convened by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in the wake of the deadly white supremacist terror killings in Christchurch last March.
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NBC (and the other broadcasters) provides copies of its shows to Youtube's Content ID filter, which is supposed to protect copyright by blocking uploads of videos that match ones in its database of claimed videos. That means that if you own the copyright to something that is aired on NBC, any subsequent attempts by you or your fans to upload your work will be blocked as copyright infringements, and could cost you your Youtube account.
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The months of debate over Article 13 of the new EU Copyright Directive (passed in a tragicomedy of errors when some MEPs got confused and pushed the wrong buttons), the most contentious issue was whether the rule would require online service providers to spend millions on copyright filters, which are known to be error-prone and the source of mountains of algorithmic censorship, as well as being easily abused by would-be censors who can make false copyright claims with impunity and use them to prevent images, videos, sounds and words from ever appearing on the internet.
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When the German MEP Axel Voss took over the new EU Copyright Directive and reinstated the controversial Article 13, he was explicit that the idea of the rule was to make all online services use filters, similar to Youtube's Content ID, to screen everything their users posted and block anything that seemed to match any unlicensed copyrighted work, anywhere.
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With all the smoke in California's air, ABC7 decided to answer the eternal question: will a mask designed to filter smoke and other particulates actually filter smoke and other particulates?
Public health officials say yes. Just make sure you get an N95, P95 or R95 mask.
Bearded people and young children need not bother.
The Bay Area Quality Management District advises that masks aren't suitable for men with beards or young children.
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You should have a Sawyer Mini water filter in your emergency supplies.
As a life-long camping gadget freak, the Sawyer Mini may be one of the best tools I've seen yet. Weighing in at only 2oz the Mini will filter 100,000 gallons of water with only minimal maintenance. No awful to use UV lights, no crazy big pump. Just squeeze a bag of water through the filter into your waterbottle.
The base kit comes with one 16oz reusable squeeze pouch. You'll likely want to get a few larger bags, I like the 64oz for fairly easy filling in a river or lake, and also being a decent size of water to process in one quick sitting. If you have running or gravity fed water that needs filtration, you can also splice the Mini in.
The Mini has a .1 micron filter, and Sawyer claims "this filter was tested to 10 million parts of bacteria and one million parts of protozoa without a single breakthrough — the highest testing level for filtration." The water doesn't taste like chemicals. I remember a boy scout Sierra backpacking trip and iodine purification tablets galore. Gah!
For under $20 no emergency survival kit should be without one of these filters.
Sawyer Products Mini Water Filtration System via Amazon
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The European Commission has a well-deserved reputation for bizarre, destructive, ill-informed copyright plans for the internet, and the latest one is no exception: mandatory copyright filters for any site that allows the public to post material, which will algorithmically determine which words, pictures and videos are lawful to post, untouched by human hands. Read the rest
